Pete's Walks - Bledlow Ridge, Bradenham, West Wycombe (page 4 of 5)
If you are considering walking this route yourself, please see my disclaimer. You may also like to see these notes about the maps and GPX files.
I ate my lunch on a bench beside the cricket pitch, then went right along the lane, which almost immediately turned left. I ignored a footpath going right, but just a few yards further on (still beside the cricket pitch) I turned right along a bridleway. This ran between hedgerows, and was soon very gradually dropping downhill. After about half a mile it merged with another bridleway that came in sharply on my left. After another quarter of a mile or so the bridleway ended at a farm drive, where I turned left and followed the drive under a railway bridge and on to a road junction on the edge of West Wycombe.
The cricket pitch at Downley
The bridleway going southwest from Downley
The bridleway going southwest from Downley
The bridleway going southwest from Downley
The bridleway going southwest from Downley (zoomed-in shot looking towards West Wycombe Hill)
The drive heading to West Wycombe
The drive heading to West Wycombe
I went more or less straight on here, following the A40 from a roundabout into West Wycombe. Here I turned right into Church Lane, which started through an archway through one of the many old buildings in the village. I followed the pavement on the left when it curved slightly left just before the lane came to a junction, and when the pavement met another lane, I crossed it and followed a faint path uphill through long grass. I soon came to a broad path of short grass leading uphill to the Dashwood family Mausoleum on top of West Wycombe Hill. On reaching the Mausoleum I went left, then keep right at a fork in the path so that I could pass through the churchyard at St Lawrence's church.
West Wycombe
The start of Church Lane, West Wycombe
The path up to the Mausoleum on West Wycombe Hill
The Dashwood family Mausoleum on West Wycombe Hill
Looking back along the rout of the A40 into High Wycombe (Downley is on top of the hillside on the far left)
St Lawrence's church on West Wycombe Hill